[thelonewolf527]

Becker Question –

How long did it take you to have any clue what was going on in chapter 1? I did the last section of it (Cost Measurement Methods) last night and am doing the multiple choice for them right now and feel absolutely lost. Everyone I know said BEC is supposed to be the “easy” section but I don’t have a clue what’s going on at all right now.

AUD - 08/04/14 - 83
FAR - 11/29/14 - 80
REG - 02/26/15 - 89
BEC - 05/30/15 - 86

DONE!

[Anonymous]

No section is “Easy” All are equal in one way or the other .

If you watched the lectures and read the book , You shouldn't be lost . If you are really lost then i would suggest you to see ALL the lectures and READ the book once . Then Start as if you are starting for the first time .

If you are new to becker , a piece of advice . Don't waste too much time viewing lectures, Personally if you are having trouble then max twice “Watching lectures only” . Reading the book/notes and mcqs can be unlimited .

GOod luck

[Anonymous]

thelonewolf527: Reading your post I was able to pick out your problem immediately. You said the following:

“Everyone I know said BEC is supposed to be the “easy” section”

BEC might have the highest passing rate but it is not an easy section. I spent nearly as much time prepping for BEC as I did for FAR. And I spent a lot more time on BEC than I did for AUD (I admit that I slacked off for AUD since I was burnt out from FAR).

B1, B2 and B3 are the hard chapters. They are very calculation and formula heavy. You also really need to understand these calculations for exam day since they will be on your exam (I'd say that 40% of my exam had a formula or a calculation). That's the bad news. The good news is that B4 – B6 are much more conceptual and go a lot faster.

BEC is overwhelming at first. There's a lot of unrelated material which makes it a bit intimidating and overwhelming at first. But each subject isn't too bad once you've gone through it enough and understand it (though I still hate Financial Management. Seriously. Screw that.).

[Quinacridone]

BEC was my lowest score – and I felt like I was struggling inordinately hard through the one month I gave it. I probably would have done so much better had I given in six weeks but I wanted it done. I agree, being told it was supposed to be easy set me up for near failure. Make sure you work that homework until your fingers bleed!

REG - Nov 4, 2013: 88
FAR - Feb 27, 2014: 86
AUD - April 5, 2014: 91
BEC - May 6, 2014: 83

Florida CPA 24 July 2014
(Done in seven months - thank you Jesus!!)

[quantumfizz]

BEC is basically a combo of introductory cost accounting, finance, IT Audit, Macro and Micro econ courses. If you had all these courses in the past few years, the material should be familiar and you should just have to re learn the nitty gritty formulas. If it's all new to you, especially on cost accounting, my advice would be to approach it as high level as possible. For FAR my approach was to understand how the financial statements work together and think logically about questions from there. Same deal with cost accounting. Think about how the different variances/formulas relate to each other and go from there. if you can get one the others will come. I.e. think conceptually about why a variance would be favorable/unfavorable…if you understand that, you should understand how to calculate the AQxSP, SQxSP, etc. Budgets are along the same line…think why one has to be developed before the other, etc.

[Rocky123]

I used Becker. Because BEC has so many different topics, it's easy to jump ahead in the book. I started with the chapter on economics to build confidence. Once I was comfortable with the material, I moved onto IT and so forth. I didn't feel it was necessary to begin with chapter one.

I actually focused on the first 3 chapters last. Cost accounting can be difficult. I didn't understand it at first, but the more I practiced, the better I became.

Keep at it. You CAN do it.

The tallest oak in the forest was once just a little nut that held its ground.

AUD-PASS
BEC-PASS
REG-PASS
FAR-PASS

Rocky123, CPA

[mommyof3texans]

BEC is just all over the place and I struggled with several of the topics myself. Just keep hammering through the material and TONS of MCQ.

BEC - 02/21/15 - 82
FAR - 05/29/15 - 82
AUD - 07/09/15 - 93
REG - 11/14/15 - 80

All done!!!

[Anonymous]

B1-B3 was definitely hard for me as well. I understood some of the concepts but when I went to the MCQs, it was like completely different.

It took me a while to understand. At one point, I decided to just move on and finish B4-B6 and eventually went back to B1-B3 to redo the MCQs that I didn't understand multiple times in that chapter. Asking for help from the online instructors were useful as well.

For me, the main confusion was understanding what items in each question goes into which part of the formula.

Best of luck!

[Anonymous]

Becker BEC Book

BEC Outline Titles:

Corporate Governance, Responsibility Accounting, & Internal Auditing Stds.

B1 – S1 Corporate Governance

B2 – S6 Responsibility Accounting

B6 – S7 Internal Auditing Standards

Operations Mgt.

B1 – S2 Operations Mgt. – Performance Mgt. & Impact of Measures on Behavior

B1 – S3 Operations Mgt. – Cost Measurement Methods & Techniques

B6 – S1 Operations Mgt. – Process Management

B6 – S2 Operations Mgt. – Project Management

Strategic Planning

B2 – S1 Profitability & Pricing Analysis

B2 – S2 Marginal Analysis

B2 – S3 Forecasting & Projection

B2 – S4 Budgeting

B2 – S5 Variance Analysis

Financial Management

B3 – S1 Capital Budgeting

B3 – S2 Leverage

B3 – S3 Weighted Average Cost of Capital & Optimal Capital Structure

B3 – S4 Asset Effectiveness & Efficiency

B3 – S5 Working Capital Mgt.

B3 – S6 Appendix: Summary of Formulate & Ratios

B6 – S4 Financial Risk Mgt.

B6 – S5 Financial Decisions

B6 – S6 Financial Valuation

Information Systems

B4 – S1 Organizational Needs Assessment

B4 – S2 Systems Design & Other Elements

B4 – S3 Security

B4 – S4 The Internet

B4 – S5 Types of Information Systems & Technology Risks

B4 – S6 Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity

B4 – S7 Appendix

Economic Concepts & Analysis

B5 – S1 Changes in Economic & Business Cycles

B5 – S2 Economic Measures & Indicators

B5 – S3 Market Influence on Business Strategies

B6 – S3 Globalization and Local Economies

[Anonymous]

The only part of the BEC that ‘might' be considered easy is if you are a good writer, the simulations are write ups instead of the standard accounting problems, although the simulations aren't weighted as heavily as the other sections.

I found BEC to be the heaviest computation wise, and therefore required to me to memorize & understand countless formulas. I also found that some of the formulas I learned for BEC were used in other sections, which helped in those other sections. Also, while the material is expansive in what it covers, the amount of the material isn't nearly as voluminous as FAR covers. For instance, Becker has something like 1200 MCQs for BEC but close to 2000 MCQs for FAR, so in that matter some might consider it ‘easier', but like others have stated, BEC isn't easy, its just different in its difficulty.

Good luck and hang in there!

[Author]

Replies